Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Aug 31, 2009 @ 01:13 AM
In a recent post, I wrote about why perceived social class may be an element in the fear some inside sales reps have in calling high. One of my blog readers, Richard Fouts, responded with a poignant post on how his own manager at HP once got angry at him for talking to HP founder Dave Packard, and told him he'd fire him if he did it again! What may have been happening here was a pretty good example of poor industrial relations between management and employees, in this case involving three levels: the sales rep, his boss, and the president of the company. By all accounts I've read, Dave Packard was not only approachable, he loved talking to his employees. But there was a communication breakdown along the line, and it came to a head when Richard was called on the carpet for "calling high" within his own company. An educated guess is that Richard's manager considered himself a minion, and tried to inculcate that feeling in his employees. This is middle management failure defined.
Organizational development guru Alexander R. Heron discussed this problem in depth way back in the 20th century, and nailed it so well that he changed the way many large companies treated employees. Although best known for his years as a VP at Crown Zellerbach, he was a well-known author (Sharing Information with Employees, 1944) and speaker who realized that unempowered employees are often inherently unhappy, and tend to create inferior processes and products along the way. Here's his quote from 1953, describing what he views as the genesis of the problem:
"The relationship between employer and employee, if we trace it back far enough, was the relationship between the master and the slave. The master supported the slave; the slave was there for the master. The fact of the matter is that gradually the slave passed out of the picture and employment took his place... There is inherent in the relationship between employers and employees something that must have derived from that tradition of centuries past when the relationship was one of conflict, one of exploitation, one of conquest, one in which the worker was subordinate not only to the will but to the needs of the master. I am sure that those of you who do any psychological or opinion research will find the reflection of that in most employer - employee relationships today."
So how does Heron's view relate to today's' telesales reps that are reticent to call high? It's all psychological, and here, the errant psychology is "I'm not good enough to call high." It's yet another take on the problem of class perception, and it's part of the reason the Framers of our Constitution determined that having a King was not a viable option for our new country. Heron wasn't about smashing the kings of industry, but rather he believed in a "flattened" informational path that would allow for better team communication within a company, no matter how big or small. Sixty some-odd years after he made the statement above, some reps still struggle with the inability to call a "king" on the phone and make something happen.
A little secret: my mom was Alexander Heron's secretary, back in the days where people still called themselves secretaries. She left his employ when she was a few months pregnant with me, and I grew up hearing a lot about him. He and his wife both liked mom, and gave her a nice little silver brush set when I was born and that I still have. Today, I spend a significant amount of time in my telesales training courses discussing how to carry on conversations with executive administrators so that telesales reps get to the executives they need to talk to. I was raised by a good one, so picked up some tips along the way. And it appears that a lot of what her boss believed and taught got passed on to me, too. If you're a sales rep that doesn't call high as often as you'd like, consider what Alexander Heron has to say, and see if it might somehow apply to you. And if you're a telesales manager who has reps that have trouble consistently calling high, consider those unspoken societal "rules" that may be holding your reps back. Consider holding a "lunch & learn" meeting on this topic, and add this concept to your Best Management Playbook.
I'd value your comments on this, too. What do you think of Alexander R. Heron's "slavery" model of business evolution? Does this concept have any value in today's sales world?
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Aug 24, 2009 @ 01:11 AM
Since I first designed and taught my first telesales training courses in 1990, I've been competing with a number of people and companies. One in particular operates in my nearby geographical space and has the same customer focus. There are very big differences in our training philosophies, and those clear differentiators make it fairly easy for the prospect to make a decision. So the other day, this competitor and I found ourselves in the same room, because we were making presentations on our training programs to the same people. She's been in business for 15 years, and we'd never been in the same place at the same time! This competitor has a reputation for being a very nice person, so I walked up to her, introduced myself, and told her I was delighted to meet a person that everyone liked so much. Even though we compete consistently, we became pretty good buddies that day. It really is possible to like your competitor.
I'm blogging on this because maybe one day you'll be working a trade show or seminar, and your competitor will have a nearby booth. Yes, I know you dislike the competition, that's how you've been trained, right? But I want you to consider a different approach. Go over and introduce yourself. Pay him or her sincere compliment to break the ice (you can always say "you're a tough competitor," which doesn't give away any trade secrets). What you'll find is that your competitor is probably like you, friendly, tenacious, and smart. You can talk shop a little. And these two things will occur:
1) You'll find out a lot more about how your competitor is selling against you. Five or ten minutes with another person can tell you a lot about how he or she communicates.
2) You'll be making a contact that could be beneficial for your career, future-wise. Very few of us stay with one company forever. You want everyone --- including your competitors --- to know you're a major player. Your competitor will change companies, you'll change companies. Companies are bought, sold, merged, and go out of business every day. That competitor across the aisle may eventually be your best buddy, and you may each end up working for the same company one day.
There's a really antiquated business model that says "hate the competition," that really doesn't hold much value in today's world. In the very last sales job I had, prior to starting my sales training company, I sold a product called the Atron Evaluator. It competed against Mercury Interactive's TestRunner. I beat up on Mercury a lot, and placed a lot of my product. Years later, I ended up training their entire inside sales team. At least one rep I trained there was active at Mercury years before when I was directly competing with them. He was a great guy, and we had fun talking about my old product that afternoon during a break. I'm sure I would have loved meeting him years before too, when we were actively selling against each other. Regardless of what upper management may be telling you, there's no reason to despise your competitors. You should respect them and outsell them. But also remember that your competitors are also colleagues. You have common problems, goals, and objectives. For the most part, if they weren't friendly, smart, and honest, they wouldn't be in high tech sales, either.
To sum up, I'm really glad I met my sales training competitor the other day. We had a great conversation, then went back the next day and started competing against each other again. I feel that I've met a friendly colleague, and it made my day. I've never believed in "slamming the competition" because it's just not professional. You build a lot more credibility with the prospect by complimenting some aspect of your competition, while clearly stating the differentiators that make your solution a better choice. So next time you have the opportunity at a trade show or other industry event, I'd like you to consider running over and meeting your competitor, and adding this important step in building your social and intelligence network to your Best Practices Playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Aug 17, 2009 @ 01:11 AM
When I'm not delivering telesales training courses to my clients, I'm spending a significant amount of time helping great telesales reps that have previously taken my classes to find great telesales jobs. I know their work because I trained and coached them, and I don't charge a fee for recruiting, so companies love talking to me. And I love helping out people that have taken my classes and excelled.
In our current economic situation, I've never seen so many exceptional telesales candidates looking for work. One rep got laid off because she was the last hired, and her company needed to lose headcount. Over the course of the year she had worked for the company, she had always been over quota. She was laid off when non-producing reps were kept. That's politics. Another rep got his territory changed to a distant state, and as a hybrid rep, had to travel a lot there. The problem? Two young kids at home, and this rep was a real active parent. Like the first rep, this rep had never been under quota as well. That's economics.
Whether its internal company politics or economics, I would guess that a significant number of you reading this blog post are concerned about your own jobs, or should be. Being always over quota won't save you, as the first rep mentioned above found out. Here's my recommendation: while you're employed and happy, start engaging in social networking right now so you can develop relationships with people you already know, through social networking sites like LinkedIn. I personally prefer LinkedIn to many of the other social sites because it's more about business, and not as much about where I like to bowl I don't own stock in the company, I'm just being objective). You may already have a profile, but if you don't, please do it. Start by adding sales executives with whom you've had a good relationship. Add your sales colleagues. And also, if you've got executive-level customers, you might want to add them, too (the first rep above did just that, and got a stellar recommendation from one of them that's on her LinkedIn page.) I recommend that you keep your contacts to people you really know, and don't send out invitations to people you'd like to know. If you feel that strongly about wanting to know someone, why not call and introduce yourself first?
There's a lot of buzz right now about Sales 2.0 concepts, which, for our purposes, essentially marry inside sales with web technologies. People spend a lot of time talking about how Sales 2.0 can help a rep sell better, but not so much time discussing how these concepts can strengthen one's career path. If you develop that social networking path right now, you may find it's your best friend later, if your company drops headcount or goes under completely. If you've got a good LinkedIn network, you can use it to find out who-knows-who. If you see a job requisition that appeals to you, you can use LinkedIn to determine if you know anyone that works there, or if anyone you know knows anyone who works there. In plain English, today's work world is volatile. Take steps to solidify your career right now, and add this technique to your Best Practices Playbook.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Aug 10, 2009 @ 01:05 AM
Later this week, I'm giving a presentation in front of some very savvy high tech inside sales executives and managers. They've heard just about everything about telesales courses you can imagine, and I've been asked to tell them --- among other things --- why my sales training is different. Those of you who subscribe to my blog know I stay away from actively promoting my training classes on it. Instead, I provide inside sales tips that you can use right now, today, to make more money. But in that presentation this week, I'm going to give them the differentiator that I'm blogging about today, because it's important, and most inside sales reps aren't doing it. And the bigger the deal, the larger the enterprise prospect is, its importance becomes greater. It's the one-call, 8 minute close. And it's got to be done on the first call.
It's my firm belief that on the first call to a prospect, you've got to get everything done in 8 minutes or fewer. That means opening the call well, asking your qualification questions, finding out about the prospect's business, determining how ROI fits into the equation, then closing on the next step. Most of the time, about 8 minutes is all the prospect will give you. Your delivery is a lot like show biz. It has to be interesting, concise, entertaining, and leave the prospect wanting more. And if you've done your job well, but forgotten to get the ROI data you need, the prospect is likely never to return your subsequent calls, even though he or she is interested. Why? Because the prospect has gotten a lot of data from you, and feel he or she now "owns" the sales process.
If you are fortunate enough to have a second conversation, the prospect will almost never tell you how much it's costing his or her company not to have a solution, although he or she would have on that first call. That's because he or she may be seriously thinking about buying your solution, and is already thinking about price negotiation. Giving you ROI data in this phase of the sales process puts your prospect at a competitive disadvantage, doesn't it? He or she knows it, too.
There's lots out there in the sales training world focusing on "charting," personality types, New-Age mysticism, psedo-psychology, pseudo-science, and communication styles. I think it's all junk, and lots of it's there to sell books, CDs, DVDs, magazines, and audio courses. It's not that complicated. You don't have to be a mind-reader to be a great sales person, but you do have to have a sense of urgency. You need to ask great questions, get elaboration on the answers, and find the ROI hole on that first call. And you'll need a call for action within a specific timeframe, too. It's a one-call close, and I recommend doing it in 8 minutes. Plenty of times, the prospect will give you more time or a few more phone calls. But don't bet on it. If you add this one-call technique to your Best Practices playbook, you'll improve call metrics, increase sales, and be better at price negotiation.
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Aug 03, 2009 @ 01:15 AM
My colleague Art Sobczak asked me to participate in an audio seminar on the subject of "following up after initial sales contacts, and then continuing to follow up while in an active sales cycle, or to stay in contact if an immediate opportunity is not present." In other words, you've already had the initial conversation. Now what do you do to ensure you stay in touch in timely fashion? I cover this material in my telesales training courses, but preparing it for the audio seminar caused me to narrow it down to the 6 most common "staying in touch" errors I've witnessed. And here they are... any of them sound familiar?
1) Failure to wrap up the initial conversation with action items for the next call, and gaining agreement from the prospect as to what they are, and when you'll call back. At the end of the initial conversation, you'll know whether your contact is a valid prospect or not, according to your qualification criteria. If you've got some action items, discuss them with the prospect, and gain agreement as to when and for what reason you'll call again.
2) Failure to call back in a timely fashion. A "timely fashion" depends on the urgency of the sales situation, but if you have a "live" opportunity, you should be calling at least once a week to discuss progress and action items.
3) Failure to have an exciting, compelling reason for your next call. Your call should make the prospect happy that you called. Have a valid new response to one of his or her concerns, a new solution offering that will improve your prospect's life, or discuss some good news about your prospect's company that might positively impact your sales situation. If you're involved in price negotiation and have a new angle on pricing, make it exciting!
4) Failure to log conversation results and scheduled callbacks in your Customer Relationship Management system (CRM). None of us can remember much about a conversation after it goes away, so important points have to be logged so that you can remember. If your pres-sales tech support people or sales engineers have access to your CRM, they'll need that info too, when they call to assist you in helping to qualify or sell to the prospect. And be sure to use your automated call scheduler to remind you when to make your next call.
5) Failure to use creative contact techniques when your prospect hasn't returned your call. Maybe your prospect is difficult to reach. Maybe he or she just doesn't want to talk to you right now, when your caller ID comes up on his or her phone. You really do have to get through, though, to find out what's going on. Three creative techniques you can use here are:
a) Use *67 to hide your caller ID before you place the call.
b) Listen to his or her voicemail all the way through to see if he or she lists an alternative contact. If so, call that person, and ask him or her to find your prospect.
c) Upon getting your prospect's outgoing voicemail message, hit 0#, then ask the receptionist to put you through to someone in the department who can track down your prospect.
The three techniques I mentioned under item #5 are especially important when you have a proposal in front of the prospect. If you do, using the above techniques will rarely result in the prospect being upset with you, and will enable you to manage the sales process more effectively.
6) Not checking in at least once a quarter with good-prospect, no current opportunity people. We talk to these people every day. They are ideal for our solutions, but have valid reasons for not moving forward. You've done your ROI questioning, you're at a high level, but there's no traction. I ask these folks when they'd like me to call them back. If it's beyond 90 days, I'll call them at the 90 day period, as anything can change, and I want them thinking about me. These are the prospects I don't want slipping by, and they're always on my radar screen.
So those are the six "staying in touch" mistakes I most frequently encounter, but I could add a whole lot more to the list. To keep things positive, there are great things you can do too, that your competitors may not do. One of my prospects is a big baseball fan of a particular team. I found a fascinating article written on the other coast about his team, so I emailed it to him. I don't do this kind of stuff to sell them anything, I do it because I genuinely like my prospects, and try to brighten their days when they hear from me. There's a little bit of that element in #3 above.
So try to avoid the poor contact skils "deal killers" I've listed above, and add the solutions to your Best Practices Playbook. Now how about you? What follow-on call errors have you heard or experienced yourself?